Wired News

Oracle today launched Oracle 10g XE, a free version of its Database product-line. Available as a free download of 150MB download, it is intended for the Developers who want to test out their applications with the Oracle Database. Ofcourse, there are some limitations in this free version. It can store up to 4GB of user data, use up to 1GB of memory, and use one CPU on the host machine, though Oracle Database XE can be installed on any size host machine with any number of CPUs. Oracle has posed the biggest challenge to MySQL, after the Oracle's failed attempt to acquire MySQL failed. For we know, Oracle is a much serious database than MySQL.

Google Base provides data structure and distribution for a wide range of content and information, a subset of items are for sale. To help users more easily purchase and sell Google Base items, Google is planning to enable people to buy items on Google Base using their Google Accounts. Many of you are probably already familiar with the Google Account. You use it to sign in and pay for a number of Google services, like Google Video and Google Earth . Now, Google is introducting similar functionality on Google Base. For buyers, this feature will provide a convenient and secure way to purchase Google Base items by credit card. For sellers, this feature integrates transaction processing with Google Base item management. Starting with a very small number of sellers and we expect to include more over the next several months. Sellers & people interested in getting an announcement when this feature is generally available, let us know . And if you want to know how this functionality relate...

Today, Google launched Google Page Creator . Google Page Creator is a free online tool that makes it easy for anyone to create and publish useful, attractive web pages in just minutes. Just do a normal sign-in using your gmail user account, and start creating pages. You can edit your pages in the editor, using WYSIWYG editor, and the pages would be hosted at http://yourgoogleusername.googlepages.com You can choose from a number of pre-defined formats to alter the look of your web-pages and do all basic HTML stuff required. Link: http://pages.google.com

There has been speculations for sometime now, that Google is developing a Calendar service likely to be called as gCalendar. Another point supporting it is the case of gcalendar.com that was registered sometime back in 2004, owned by Data Docket Inc. which was affiliated with Google. Now, there is a trusted tester program accessible through " http://calendar.google.com/tester ". It points to the same place - that is not specifically for the calendar program, but as a general testing platform, that is generally developed by the companies for beta testing of the products, before they are launched into the market. More Info on Google Trusted Tester Program is available at: http://www.google.com/tester/faq So, as I believe, and looking at the movements made by Google in the recent path, if Google Calendar is beta launched soon, it should not be received as an unexpected launch :)

As I posted earlier, now it's confirmed. Google is running a beta program for the Gmail service to offer Google's webmail service to every user on an associated domain. Gmail for your domain would be hosted by Google, so there is no requirement of hardware/software on part of domain owners. This program is available as a limited beta, you can sign up for the program here

Microsoft bought the Paris-based mobile search company MotionBridge to enhance the focus on its Windows Live Search Program. Windows Live is Microsoft's initiative to provide Web-based consumer services, including e-mail, messaging, local search, mapping and classifieds. The MotionBridge move was one of two major announcements that Microsoft made as the 3GSM worldwide mobile technology conference in Barcelona, Spain, got underway. The other involved a push e-mail technology that many see giving Microsoft a greater ability to offer an alternative to Research in Motion's BlackBerry. Windows Live Search for mobile devices lets users to use their mobile devices to search the web on the go. It also lets you save the results, find nearest food-joint/gas station, view a map to the destination alongwith detailed driving conditions whatever. The emerging field of mobile search is strategically important and crucial to delivering on our vision for Windows Live of providing a seamless an...

Google today released an update to Libjingle . For those of us, who do not know Libjingle , let me tell you that Libjingle is Google Talk's implementation of Jingle and Jingle-Audio (proposed extensions to XMPP) to interoperate with Google Talk's peer-to-peer and voice calling capabilites. The notable changes in libjingle version 0.2.0 are build support for Windows using Visual Studio Express, TLS Support (used encryption of data), and a new "tunnel" session type, being the most important one. This new "tunnel" session type can be used to reliably transfer a TCP-like stream of data over Jingle's peer-to-peer connections. That would directly mean, gtalk will offer video-conferencing, file transfer support shortly. voila!!!

Google’s Gmail has been an innovative web-based email service, ever since it launched, offering unique concept of conversations, heavy use of AJAX based interface, Intellisense for contacts while composing emails and last but not the least: the concept of filters to fill the huge 2GB mailbox. Now, after integrating the Gtalk’s chat logs into the Gmail accounts as another label, Gmail is geared to go even further and all the more alluring. If code is to be believed, found deep inside the javascript source, Gmail is all poised up to offer Gmail for domains. Hold your breath: Yes, Gmail for domains! The following code snippet is suggesting this: function vJ(){ if(uy){ ;return' '+"Manage this domain"+" "} else{return""}} Gmail for domains would mean that any user who owns a domain can utilized Gmail as a Mail Server for his domain in addition to just being a client. Unarguably, this would ...

Google, which is known for its simple way of searching the Web, is hoping that by embedding new instant messaging software it calls "Gmail Chat" into its existing e-mail service it can differentiate itself in a crowded market it was late to join. The Mountain View, California-based company is struggling to stand out in an entrenched field. Instant messaging was pioneered by America Online more than a decade ago. It, Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. now have tens of millions of users each. Google is fixing a decade-old technical divide between the generic Web browser that can check e-mail, search the Web or perform a host of other activities, and separate software used to converse in quick back-and-forth messages with buddies. "We are breaking down some of the artificial barriers between e-mail and Web browsing," Salar Kamangar, Google's vice president of product management, said in a phone interview. "We observed by talking with our users that there is no rea...

The SeaMonkey project is a community effort to deliver production-quality releases of code derived from the application formerly known as "Mozilla Application Suite". This Mozilla.org's open source internet suite features a state-of-the-art web browser and powerful email client, as well as a WYSIWYG web page composer and a feature-rich IRC chat client. For web developers, mozilla.org's DOM inspector and JavaScript debugger tools are included as well. It also has a few nifty features, of particular interest: drag&drop reordering of tabs, support for a common inbox for multiple email accounts, SVG and phishing detection. Click here to Download

Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 for Preview yesterday. As propounded by Microsoft, IE7 includes some major enhancements that have already been widely discussed over the Web. Without diverging from its commitment, Microsoft has introduced a number of new features in this new version 7 of Internet Explorer, though most of the new features are already available in the popular rival Open-Source Browser, Mozilla Firefox . Features like Tabbed Browsing, Integrated Web Search Toolbar, Shortcut for deleting Browsing History, Zoom with Mouse-Wheel and Integration of RSS Feeds are already available to the users with Mozilla Firefox. IE7 also offers similar keyboard shortcuts for tabbed browsing. Major portions of the browser code has been rewritten in IE7. With a new Interface that is Cleaner and Sleeker than its predecessors IE7 offers Improved Security that help in removing Malicious software (Malware) from the system and Protection of Personal Data from Phishing through (Micro...

AT&T touted all of that and more at its annual analysts meeting in New York on Tuesday. What analysts liked the most, in the near term, was AT&T's announcement that it plans to buy back $2 billion of its shares in 2006. Shares in the new AT&T, created by SBC Communications' purchase of Ma Bell in November, have climbed 6% this year. The AT&T purchase is expected to contribute to earnings in 2007, a year ahead of previous company forecasts. "Synergies from the AT&T merger will be larger, and they will come sooner, than in the outlook we provided a year ago," Whitacre said. AT&T says it will soon begin selling Cingular's wireless phone services to large companies under the AT&T brand. That marketing tactic may not please BellSouth if AT&T targets companies within its BellSouth's nine-state home region, some analysts say. On Tuesday, Cingular CEO Stanley Sigman disagreed. "There has been a lot of speculation," Sigman said...